Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/university-of-illinois/)
In 2013, mammoth U.S. investment company TIAA-CREF gave $5 million to the University of Illinois — to study an area of investment where the company has made a, sometimes controversial, name for itself.
Large donors can put universities in potentially awkward positions when faculty conclusions conflict with the interests of those benefactors. Data collected by Harvest Public Media and Investigate Midwest shows corporations have given at least $170 million to ag colleges in the past decade.
Students report a wide variety of experiences after testing positive for COVID-19 on Midwest campuses. Some were held in university facilities where food was scarce; others were placed in hotels with regular meals. Some said their personal contacts were notified; others say no one even asked who they’d come into contact with, if their schools followed up with them at all.
But an analysis of the efforts at four major Midwestern universities shows that no matter what schools tried — whether it was Illinois’ much-touted testing program or Missouri’s lack of comprehensive or random testing — the results were much worse than predicted. At those campuses and the flagship universities in Indiana and Wisconsin, at least 15,000 tested positive for COVID-19 this fall.
Researchers from the University of Illinois and U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service report in the journal Science that crops engineered with a photorespiratory shortcut are 40 percent more productive in real-world agronomic conditions.
While taxpayer money doesn’t technically go to pay the coaches’ actual salary lines, taxpayer money does pay for the salary packages for most every UI coach, trainer, and full-time athletic department staff member. That’s because UI athletic department employees are UI employees, so they receive the same “standard university benefits” as all other UI employees.
And benefits for UI employees – health, dental, etc. – are paid for by the state of Illinois. In other words, the taxpayers.
The weather that led to the below-average conditions could be a preview of future climate conditions, according to a new study from the University of Illinois.
Since 2000, the percentage of genetically engineered corn planted in the United States has grown from 25 percent to 92 percent in 2016. But unless yields increase significantly, experts say the world will not be able to grow enough food to feed itself by 2050, with food shortages anticipated as soon as 2030.
The new 10-year agreement, announced by the UI this week, will supply the Urbana campus with 25,000 MWh of energy, about 8.6 percent of the total generation from the Rail Splitter Wind Farm.
A solution to world hunger may come through increasing the efficiency of one of nature’s most basic functions: photosynthesis.